


Unsolved

by orphan_account



Category: escape the night - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 14:20:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15996983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There’s mysteries buried in the town of Everlock, but choosing to solve them will result in death.





	Unsolved

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a story that was living in my brain and i felt the need to put it out there

Matthew rubbed the edges of his badge as he looked up at the map on the wall.

The yellowed paper wasn't revealing any new secrets, just the same buildings and attractions.

They'd lost JC, Roi, Teala, and Colleen, and the morale of the group was low. They needed another challenge.

"Find anything?" Safiya asked, walking up next to him.

"No. We need to find another clue if we're going to make any sort of progress," Matthew sighed.

"Well, that's going to be hard. Everybody's still grilling Joey about what he knows, so I don't think we can really ask them to think critically at the moment."

"Don't they understand? We're better as a team. We can't have all these divisions, or it's going to rip us apart from the inside," Matthew explained, shaking his head. He didn't mind thoughtful debates, but the flat-out accusations that were starting to appear were a serious threat to everyone.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Matthew said. He turned to go try and defuse the tension amid the rest of the group, but a bullet buried itself in the wall an inch away from his head.

Instinctually, he ducked.

Safiya whipped around. "Shit!" she yelled, and frantically started to look for something she could use as a weapon.

Another bullet came through the window, and lumps of glass skittered on the floor.

Everybody had been preoccupied with their argument, but the sound of glass shattering got them to turn around.

"Hide!" Manny shouted, diving behind a couch. 

"What the hell?" Nikita said, trying to see out the broken window from her position.

Matthew, still on the floor, saw a letter stamped on the bullet just ahead of him.

"GUYS!" he yelled.

Everybody turned to face him.

"Collect the bullets! They're a clue!"

"Are you crazy?!" Nikita said hysterically.

"I've got three!" Ro whispered, handing them to Matthew.

He tried to block out the screaming and gunshots, and just focused on the letters in front of him. 

"Okay, there's an A, a G, a Y, and an L so far."

"Lagy? Glay?" Joey said, trying to find combinations.

"I've got two!" Nikita shouted, tossing them to Matthew.

"Another L and an E."

"Galley? Is there a ship here?" Joey asked.

A scream came from the back of the lounge.

"It's Safiya!" Manny called out.

Safiya was grabbing her shoulder, and blood was leaking between her fingers.

"Shit, shit, shit," she whispered through clenched teeth.

"Where did it get you? Are you okay?" Ro asked quickly, wrapping a bandage around the wound.

"Safiya, we need the bullet," Joey said, realizing what they had to do.

"Does... does anyone have any tweezers or anything?" Matthew asked.

"I'll do it," Rosanna volunteered. "Safiya, can you lie on the ground for me?"

Wincing, Safiya did what Ro asked.

"Okay. This is gonna hurt, I'm so sorry," she whispered, and dug into the wound.

"MotherFUCKER!" Safiya yelled, gripping the leg of the table.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Rosanna repeated. "Oh! I got the bullet! It has an R on it."

"Gallery!" Matt said. "Is there an art installation around here or something?"

"The map changed!" Nikita pointed out. "Shooting Gallery," she read. 

"The Sharpshooter is the one you seek, but beware his sharpened darts- they'll find you in the coldest dark and pierce your beating hearts," Manny continued.

"Fun," Matthew said drily. "Not chilling at all."

"Well, we should go check out the shooting gallery, right?" Nikita asked.

"Yeah. Safiya, you should stay here, recover a little bit-" Joey started, but Safiya cut him off. 

"No way. I'm not abandoning the team like that. I can stand," she replied, pulling herself up and tightening the bandages.

"If you're sure," Ro said. "Here, lean on me."

"Come on, let's go," Nikita announced.

***

Outside, it was eerily quiet. The only sound was the wind.

"Where's the murderous pointy guy?" Manny whispered.

"Sharpshooter. And I'd rather he not show up," Matthew remarked.

"I agree with Matt," Ro piped up, shivering in her coat.

Carefully, the group made their way to the shooting gallery, where a demonic-looking brown teddy bear was perched. It had blood leaking out of two holes where its eyes should have been, and a gaping, oozing hole in the center dripped with some sort of viscous liquid.

"So, who wants to touch it?" Joey asked.

"Um, no way, bitch," Nikita snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. "That looks haunted."

Matt reached out and picked the bear up gingerly, and he realized it was holding a roll of paper.

The Sharpshooter's Grand Prize can only be won if you give him some new eyes and a heart. But be careful- the daughter's protective of her toys.

"So this is the grand prize for the booth? Frankly, I'd rather lose the game," Manny said.

"So to cleanse the artifact, we need to find a teddy bear heart and two eyes..." Safiya read aloud, leaning on Rosanna.

"Daughter? What does that-" Ro started to ask, but then a carnival-style dart hit the ground in front of them.

"You know what? For a sharpshooter, his aim's not that great," Matthew whispered.

The end of the dart popped open, and a dark vapor started to pour out.

"Spoke too soon," he coughed, blinking wildly.

A shadow appeared in the haze, and soon the muzzle of a gun was pointed at them, visible through the cloud.

The eyes of the shadow were the only thing they could see, twin orbs of orange light piercing the fog.

"RUN!" Matthew screamed, helping Rosanna support Safiya and tearing off towards the lounge.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," Joey said, sprinting through the door. "Hurry up!"

Nikita and Manny were next, hurdling all the obstacles they hadn't noticed when they were walking.

A dart grazed against Nikita's hair. She yelped and started to run faster, dragging Manny behind her into the lounge.

After them, Ro and Matthew were balancing Safiya, trying to hoist her up.

"Leave me here. I'm slowing you down," she urged.

"No," Rosanna said simply. "We're not leaving anyone."

"Okay, okay, we're almost there, come on, just a few more feet," Matthew muttered, moving as fast as he could.

A dart hit Ro's thigh, and she screamed, falling to the ground.

Panic filled Matt. He needed to get two injured people to the lounge, and the Sharpshooter was gaining fast.

So he ran, hoisting Ro over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, holding onto Safiya behind him.

Matthew fell forward into the lounge, and Joey slammed the door behind them.

"Holy shit," Manny breathed, sitting down. 

Safiya was gritting her teeth and bracing against the table.

"Are you okay?" Ro asked, rubbing her back.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

"There's a note over here, you guys!" Manny said, waving a piece of paper in the air.

"What? What does it say?" Matthew questioned, peering up at the smudged letters.

"It's our next challenge! We have to find the eyes."

"Okay, that's peachy, but what are the rules?" Safiya asked, reapplying the bandages to her shoulder.

"Hold on, I'm getting to that. We're supposed to... fight each other... in the tent?" Nikita read, squinting at the paper.

"With what?" Matthew questioned.

"Bitch, it doesn't say," Manny said exasperatedly, shaking the card in Matt's face.

"All right, all right. Calm down, guys. Safiya, are you feeling okay?" Joey asked.

"I'm good," Safiya responded, flashing a thumbs-up.

"Ro, how about you?"

Rosanna had managed to remove the dart and stop the bleeding. "I'm fine, thank you," she said, applying pressure with a piece of fabric she'd taken from the curtains.

"Okay. Let's get a move on."

Manny tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge.

"Um, what?" Nikita remarked.

"I got this," Ro replied, handing Matt her coat and rolling up her dress sleeves.

Taking a few steps back, she ran at the door shoulder-first, and it fell to the ground with a thud and a puff of dust.

Everybody stared openmouthed at Rosanna, who put her jacket back on and straightened the drawstrings.

"Somebody boarded up the door," Matthew noticed, pointing at the broken planks.

"Rather, somebody bulleted up the door," Safiya said, pointing at the pieces of wood that were still stuck to the doorframe with bullets. "He used bullets in place of nails. I don't know if that's the greatest technique."

"We should get to the tent," Manny muttered cautiously.

Nikita was the first one to step off the porch, and as soon as her foot touched the ground, a deep growl arose from somewhere in the town.

"What was that?" she asked, yanking her foot back off the dirt.

Far away, silhouetted by the moon, a little girl stood motionless.

"Where the hell did she come from?" Joey said shrilly.

"Are you okay?" Ro called out. "Where are your parents?"

The girl started walking towards them, and as she got closer, they could see her eyes were completely dark. And her heart was glowing through her chest, beating arrhythmically.

"Oh no," Matthew whispered, putting two and two together. "Guys, we need to run. Now."

"Come play with me," the girl said, her voice sending chills down everyone's spine.

"Who is that?" Rosanna asked, limping a little as she ran.

"The Sharpshooter's Daughter. Remember the clue? The eyes and heart are gone because they're a part of her," Matthew explained.

"The tent's just up ahead! Come on, we can make it!" Joey shouted.

Just then, the Daughter grabbed his wrist, her grip as solid as a vise, and forced him to the ground.

"She got me!" he yelled. "Keep running!" 

Safiya turned around to look, pausing, and the Daughter took her, too, tying her and Joey together with the balloon's string.

Everyone else barely ducked inside the tent.

"Is everyone okay?" Matt asked, looking around. "Did Joey and Safiya get taken?"

"We have to go find them," Ro said,  and started to run towards the tent flap, but a gate crashed down, blocking off the exit.

"We can't leave until we complete the task," Manny murmured.

"The game is Electrified Russian Roulette."

Matthew had started reading the card.

"There will be two winners. The other two are entering the final arena of death."

"What does it mean, 'electrified' Russian Roulette?" Nikita asked. "Are we going to be shooting lightning or some shit?"

"Actually, you're not far off," Matthew conceded. "One gun has blanks. The other will temporarily paralyze you. Choose carefully," he read.

Four guns laid on the table, each identical to the next.

"Okay, I'll go against Manny," Matt said. 

"Wait, why me?" Manny asked incredulously.

Matthew just didn't want to go against Ro. She was one of his best friends. So he had randomly chosen between Manny and Nikita. But he didn't tell Manny that.

"No reason. We've just got to get this moving if we want to rescue Safiya and Joey. You can pick first, if that makes you feel any better."

Manny approached the Group 1 table, thought for a while, and selected the gun on the right.

"Here we go," he whispered.

Matthew picked up the remaining gun and walked into the ring.

"Good luck," he said, and he meant it.

"You too," Manny replied.

"On three?"

"Sure."

Matthew counted down and raised the gun.

"Three... two... one."

A burst of electricity sizzled out of Manny's gun. He screamed once and fell to the ground, shaking.

"MANNY!" Nikita cried out.

Matthew ran over to him, trying to snap him out of it, but he got an intense shock when he tried to touch Manny.

"He's okay, I think. The card said it was temporary," Matthew reminded everyone, including himself.

"I don't give a shit! Look at him!" Nikita screamed.

However, Manny sat up after a minute or two, his hair standing up on end and his eyes bloodshot.

"I hate this game," Rosanna whispered softly.

***

The Daughter took Joey and Safiya to the edge of town, where she locked them in a holding cell and sat down in front of it, untying the balloon string.

"Papa will be here soon..." she whispered in a singsong voice.

"What do we do?" Joey asked.

"We need to distract her somehow," Safiya whispered back. "And we also need her eyes, but both of those seem like pretty problematic ideas to execute at the moment."

"Here! There's something here!" Joey exclaimed quietly, digging in the ground. "It's a screwdriver!"

"Are we supposed to... kill her?" Safiya replied. "With that?"

"I guess so. Wait, there's a note attached."

The Daughter goes to sleep by counting sheep- or by the music of her favorite lullaby.

"I don't see any sheep," Safiya said, sitting down. Her shoulder was hurting her again. The adrenaline of the chase had helped, but now it was wearing off. "Ow!" she yelped, and the Daughter turned around, tilting her head.

Safiya tried to cover it up with a cough, and the little girl seemed to lose interest and went back to her creepy song.

"What happened?" Joey asked. 

"I sat on something. It's a music box! If we assemble it-"

"-it'll play the lullaby!" Joey continued, finishing the sentence. "Okay, we need to find more pieces."

"We just need a gear, a screw, and a spring."

Just then, a cloud covered the moon, and the cell became completely dark.

"See, this is when a flashlight would come in handy," Joey remarked, trying to find the small objects by feel alone.

"This is when any sort of light would come in handy," Safiya responded. "Oh! I've got the spring."

"Good, because I've only got dirt under my fingernails."

"Try to find the gear. That'll probably be easiest," Safiya advised. "We should probably talk as little as possible, though, so we don't make Crazy Maisy over there suspicious."

Joey nodded, even though Safiya couldn't see him.

A few minutes passed in silence, and then Joey found the gear.

"One left. The screw, right?" Joey questioned quietly.

"Yeah."

They searched for a long time, but came up with nothing.

Joey leaned against the iron bars in frustration, but realized something was poking him in the foot.

"Oh, wait! Here! It was in my shoe!"

"How did it- never mind," Safiya said. "Here. Put it in the music box, and wind it up."

Safiya used the screwdriver to fix the components, and Joey wound it up. The song played, and the girl's head went slack.

"I don't want to do it," Joey whispered. "You do it."

Gritting her teeth, Safiya wrenched the Daughter's eyes out of their sockets.

"Ew. Ew ew ew. That was gross," she said, wincing with equal parts pain and disgust.

"But we have the bear's eyes now. Maybe we could get the-" Joey started, but before he could say "heart", he was interrupted by two things happening at once. 

First, the cell door swung open, but then the Daughter turned around, bloody eyeless face and all, and snarled, revealing inhuman teeth.

"Time to go!" Joey yelled, and they ran back to the lounge.

***

Ro's hand hovered over the gun on the left, then moved to the one on the right.

"I don't know which one to choose," she said quietly, swallowing nervously.

"That's the fucking point. Just hurry up, please?" Nikita asked impatiently. She was angry from watching what happened to Manny.

"Hey. Leave her alone," Matthew said emphatically, narrowing his eyebrows.

"Fine."

Rosanna grabbed the left gun.

"Finally," Nikita sighed, and tossed herself the right gun.

"Do you want to do it on three, too?" Ro asked.

"Whatever. I just want to get this done."

"Okay," Rosanna responded, nodding, feeling the cold metal of the barrel against her forehead.

"Three." Nikita started counting.

"Two."

"One."

Rosanna felt her entire body tense up, and then a wave of electricity pulsed through her.

She wanted to scream, but she couldn't, couldn't do anything but wait for the terror to be over.

And then it was.

Matthew didn't say anything, just helped her to her feet and gave her a hug.

"Thank you," she whispered.

A box opened, and inside were two pairs of pliers.

"What the hell are we supposed to use these for?" Manny asked.

"I don't know, but we should definitely leave before the Sharpshooter comes," Matthew said, hurrying everybody towards the lounge.

*** 

Everybody was quiet once they were all together again.

They'd broken off into two groups naturally.

Manny and Nikita were sitting in the back of the room, Safiya and Joey were dealing with the artifact, and Rosanna and Matt were sitting on the couch.

"Matt, I'm really scared," Rosanna whispered, biting her lip, trying to hold back tears. "I don't want to die. Not yet."

"I'm scared too. We're trapped in a town from the seventies that's overrun with monsters. If we weren't scared, I'd be concerned."

"You read the card. This challenge is basically a death sentence," Ro said, starting to cry in earnest now.

"Look. Take my badge. Maybe it'll help you," Matthew replied, folding her hands around the gold emblem.

"You're such a good friend, Matt," Ro said, trying to smile through her tears. "If something happens-"

"So are you. And we don't need to say goodbyes. You're going to make it. I know you will," Matthew stated. "You are brave," he told her, resting his hands on her shoulders.

Ro pinned the badge to her jacket and nodded.

"You need to beat her. I know we love Rosanna, but you need to beat her, Manny," Nikita said.

"I will. Don't worry. I'll be back here to snatch your wig any fucking day of the week," Manny responded, grinning.

Safiya and Joey walked into the middle of the room, by the coffee table. 

"We think we know what these pliers are for," Joey announced.

"They're for the contenders in the final challenge. You need to get the Daughter's heart."

"How do you know that?" Matthew asked.

"It was just delivered," Safiya explained, holding out the note.

Beware, beware the heart of the Daughter you seek to retrieve, for the Sharpshooter will protect it with his life, and his bullets.

"That... doesn't sound promising," Manny said, breaking the silence.

"Nope," Rosanna agreed. 

"We should go, though. We don't want to waste any time. We only have a few hours until the sun comes up," Manny remembered.

"Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you should go," Matthew said. 

He gave Rosanna a hug. "Don't leave me here alone, okay?"

Ro nodded. "I promise."

Manny left, but Ro paused and looked back. Her friends were standing there, all watching her with a mix of hope and fear.

"Bye, guys," she whispered.

Then she went through the door.

***

The Daughter and the Sharpshooter were standing at the end of the road, and Manny and Ro were standing together at the opposite end.

Ro brandished her pliers, ready for a fight, but the two demons turned and ran.

"What?" Manny asked with disbelief. 

"We need to follow them!" Rosanna said, running after the tracks the two had made. 

They disappeared into a giant maze, one with high walls and no conceivable way out.

"Bye, Ro," Manny said.

"Bye, Manny," Rosanna replied.

And they ran in.

It was pitch black. Ro hated the dark. She always had.

But she soon preferred the dark to what appeared- the Sharpshooter. He leveled his gun at her and fired, and a dart shot out.

Ro ducked just in time, but soon the whole area was illuminated with the light from gunfire.

Manny was confronted by the Daughter early into the maze. At first, he thought he was lucky, because he'd be more likely to get the heart, but the Daughter was ruthless. She ran up the walls, led Manny through countless false paths, and even straight-up disappeared at one point.

But the look on Nikita's face when he had left kept him going. He couldn't let his best friend down.

Rosanna thought she was going to die.

The air was filled with flashes and the noise of guns, and all around there were deadly projectiles that could kill her at a moment's notice.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Then she faced the Sharpshooter and ran at him, dodging the bullets he was shooting at her.

She pushed off the ground and flipped over his head, and for a moment, time slowed down. She could see the Sharpshooter's eyes, and they were widened with fear.

She landed behind him. Her ankles almost buckled, but she hit him on the head with the pliers, then continued into the maze before he regained consciousness.

For a second, she was filled with elation. She'd done something incredible. Maybe she could do this!

But when she took the next turn, she saw Manny, struggling with the girl.

She also saw the telltale glow of the heart, just around the next corner.

For anyone else, the choice would've been hard.

But for Ro, there was no question about it.

"HEY!" she shouted, and the Daughter turned and snapped at her with terrifying fangs, letting Manny go.

"Wait, Ro, what are you doing?" Manny asked, out of breath.

Rosanna didn't answer. She had known what she was going to do the second she heard the note.

"Tell Matt I'm sorry, okay?" she asked. Tears were slipping down her cheeks. "Tell him I didn't want to leave him. He's one of the best friends I ever had.” She felt something hollow yawn open in her gut. “Just... keep him safe for me, all right?"

The Daughter started to sprint at Rosanna on all fours, snarling.

"Go! Go find the heart!" she yelled, crying. "You can do it! Go!"

Manny scrambled to his feet and ran into the center, but something made him look back.

Rosanna looked terrified, but also calm. As the Daughter closed in, she shut her eyes.

"You are brave," she whispered to herself. "You are brave."

Manny clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his scream as the Daughter pinned Ro to the ground and ripped out her throat brutally.

No mercy.

And then she was dead.

Just like that.

The Daughter turned towards Manny next, teeth stained with blood, and Manny closed his hand around the heart.

The Daughter stopped, stuck in her current position, paused by Manny’s grip.

Manny didn't know how long she'd stay like this, so he took the heart and turned to leave, but he took Matt’s badge off the ground before he did.

***

Everybody was quiet in the lounge.

Matt was pacing, Nikita was drumming her long fingernails on the table, and Joey and Safiya were staring off into space.

The door swung open, and everyone held their breath.

Manny walked slowly into the lounge, holding the heart.

"Oh my god," Safiya whispered.

"No," Matt said. "No. That's not right. She's not dead. She can't be. She broke her promise."

Manny held out the badge.

"She said she wanted to tell you she was sorry, and to give you this."

Joey fell back against the wall, and took a deep, shuddering breath. "She always believed in me," he said. "Even when no one else did, even when I was lying to all of you, she still believed in me."

Safiya held her hand over her mouth, tears falling uncontrollably.

Matt took the badge with a shaking hand and sank to his knees, crying on the floor.

Finally, Manny plunged the heart into the teddy bear's chest, and a current of light snaked its way through the lounge and found the Sharpshooter and the Daughter, dissolving them both into dust.

Even Nikita was quiet.

Matt stood up.

"We can't let her death mean nothing," he said, his voice thick with tears. "We have to keep going. We have to end this evil before it destroys everything."

He put his badge down in the middle of the table, and everyone looked at it, sitting between them all like it might give them a miracle.

They all hoped for one.

But it didn't come.


End file.
